


Through Hell

by CaptainAmelia22



Series: Tumblr Drabble [8]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Character Death, Drabble, Gen, Headcanon, Post-Avengers (2012), Pre-Iron Man 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-18
Updated: 2013-11-18
Packaged: 2018-01-01 23:42:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1049971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainAmelia22/pseuds/CaptainAmelia22
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was her muse and she was his personal nightmare.  But in the end she was the only one who ever knew how to write him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through Hell

**Author's Note:**

> I saw this gifset on tumblr last night and remembered discussing with my best friend after Iron Man 3 about why I thought Christine wasn't in IM3. 
> 
> Then, because I'm a masochist, I decided to write said headcanon. 
> 
> This is unbeta'd, so any mistakes are my own and any flawed characterizations should be credited to late-night, post-work, brain blasts that never last long enough to get any real work done. 
> 
> I'm sorry I'm so awful.
> 
> -M

She was the bane of his existence.  

His absolute worst nightmare.

And now she was dead.

Because of him.

“She was working on an article for _the New York Times_ , Mr. Stark, an article about you.”  

He almost doesn’t hear the words.  

The Tower, Pepper’s baby, his brainchild, is falling down around his ears and he’s surrounded by the press and Fury’s lackies.  

The words her partner murmurs in his ear are very nearly lost to him.

Tony Stark jumps and jerks shadowed eyes from Pepper’s profile to the young man standing too close to him for comfort.  He’s in a gray hoodie, that’s the first thing Stark notices-a gray hoodie and high-top sneakers.  He doesn’t look like something the _Times_ would ever think to hire.

Except for the high end Nikon draping his neck and the dogged expression on his face.

There’s that.

“What did you say?” he asks, his voice rough and he tries to keep from wincing.  It’s been three days since Loki’s little tantrum.  Three long days and every bone in his fucking body still aches.  Pepper glances at him, right in the middle of her speech about how SI is going to help foot the Midtown clean-up bill, and scowls.

He’s not supposed to talk.

Not supposed to even _be_ here.

SHIELD medical didn’t clear him for this little excursion but when you’re friends with Bruce Banner and Captain America?

Rules can be broken.  

The kid has crept closer and Stark can see now, see just how determined he is to speak with him.  And the first chill of unease starts to creep up his spine.

The suits…

The suits are broken-every single one of his New York toys have been used and there’s no out now.  

No…

The kid thrusts a tiny rectangle in his face and Stark actually raises his hands, palms outthrust, and he would laugh at the ridiculousness of such a gesture if it didn’t prove-

Well, prove he’s nothing but a guy in a tin can.  

“She was working on an article about you, Mr. Stark,” the kid says just as Fury’s goons arrive to save the day and Rhodey appears at his side.  The lobby, full of shattered million dollar marble pillars and more dust than he’d ever seen in his life, falls silent as guns are drawn and Tony Stark is surrounded by men in black suits.

Pepper Potts is swept aside by Stark’s personal bodyguard, a red haired woman dressed in black leather appears out of nowhere and the War Machine armor growls dangerously in the silence.

But Tony Stark doesn’t respond to any of that.

He simply…

Takes a step towards the kid in the gray hoodie and the high top sneakers and holds out his hand.

The lobby is silent.

And everyone hears what the kid says.

“Christine would like you to read it,” he says quietly and his voice echoes all around them.  The suits shift, glance at each other and Pepper Potts gasps.  

But most of the press don’t understand what the kid meant-most of them have never heard of any Christine.

And this is Tony Stark.

They know the man better than he knows his own damn self.

The War Machine armor looms over Stark, his gatling gun aimed in the face of the kid holding the tiny red plastic rectangle out to his best friend but Stark doesn’t order him to stand down.

He simply…

Takes the flashdrive.  

“Brown,” he whispers and everyone hears the pain in his voice.

The guilt.  

He rushes from the lobby before anyone can stop him and for the first time in days he doesn’t feel the pain in his chest, in his legs.

He doesn’t feel anything.  

**

It’s a fucking good article-one of her best.  

He’s in the workshop when Rhodey finds him several hours later after the fucked up press conference Pepper had insisted on putting on.   _Saving face_ , she’d called it.

 _A fucking waste of time,_ he’d called it as he’d struggled with the sling Banner insisted on him wearing.

It doesn’t matter.

He’s taking the jet back to California in the morning.

“I can’t-I can’t stay here,” he says to her that night when Rhodey finally drags him up to the 90th floor and the bed he shares with her.  

But first, Rhodey finds him, halfway through a fifth of Lucky Dog, with Christine Everhart’s pretty damn-fine article on the holo-screen before him.  

“She did it again, Rhodes,” he says that night as Rhodey stares down at him with disapproval on his face and more than a little sadness in his eyes.  Stark shifts on the cold cement floor and tries to remember just when he slid from his desk chair to said floor.  He can’t pinpoint the time, exactly-which doesn’t surprise him.

He keeps losing time, keeps losing his (mind) focus.  

Going through a wormhole will do that to ya, doncha know?

The green bottle of Dog rises to his lips and warm whiskey washes over his tongue and this…

This is soothing.

This is peace.

_Tony Stark, the self-proclaimed warden of America’s peace, has constructed a monument in New York City.   A monument to his ego…_

They are good words.

Honest words.

“Brown always knew how to write me, always knew how to be honest about me,” he murmurs as Rhodey sighs and sags into his abandoned chair.  He tips the bottle towards the screen where most of her rough draft still glows and he swigs another mouthful.

“Tony,” Rhodey says slowly and Stark knows, knows he’s about to say something every bystander says to the hero who failed.

_It wasn’t your fault._

“She was here because of me, you know,” he says and he’s rolling to his knees, struggling to get up but with one arm bound in the goddamned sling and the other still holding the bottle of whiskey his center of gravity is faulty.  He pitches forward and manages to save the booze but not his shoulder.  He laughs and the sound is broken, hysterical.

Rhodey sighs again as he loops his arm around Stark’s waist and hauls him upright.  

He opens his mouth to say something reassuring, something useless but Stark just snorts and says with a bit of a slur now that the bottle is almost gone and he’s standing on his own two feet, “She followed me to the East Coast because I was her best story-she followed me here and you know Rhodey, I think she’s going to follow me into Hell.”

He laughs at that, his head thrown back on his neck and the bottle shattering on the floor at their feet only makes him laugh harder.  

Rhodey doesn’t have anything to say to that so he simply hauls Tony up against his side and tries to keep from reading the last article Christine Everhart wrote on his best friend.  

He tries but as Tony Stark starts to cry, his tears silent and his eyes screwed shut against the nausea and the guilt he can’t seem to stop from feeling, some of her words pop out at him.

And they are some pretty goddamned horrible words.

But not entirely wrong.

They just are.

 _In the end,_ Christine Everhart wrote on the only subject she ever seemed to care about, on the only muse she would ever claim.   _In the end we can only hope that Anthony Stark, self-proclaimed superhero and sole-creator of the Iron Man persona, will one day be the hero he thinks he truly is._

“She knew what she was getting into when she started writing about you, Tony,” Rhodey says that night as he tucks his best friend into bed and sets a full glass of water on his bedside table.  “She was a journalist.”  He smiles gently down at his best friend who gazes at him with bloodshot eyes and tear-streaked cheeks.  “Her job was writing about the monsters and heroes we face every day.”  

Stark’s eyes close at that, his hands clenching in his sheets as he curls into himself but Rhodey keeps going.

“She didn’t finish the article Tony,” he murmurs as he orders JARVIS to dim the lights and begins heading for the door.  “But I think if she’d seen you fly through that wormhole, or seen you fighting beside Rogers and Banner?”  He smiles as he glances over his shoulder back at his best friend.  “She would have changed the final draft.”  

The door closes behind him but Stark doesn’t notice.

Doesn’t hear the faint click.

All he can hear is his best friend’s last words.

_She would have changed the final draft._

And for some reason…

Those words are more soothing than they should be.

Because in the end?

In the end he was the hero he truly thought he was.

In the end he saved the world.

And in the end, the journalist who had followed him through Hell would have been proud.  

He sighs and for the first time in days, finally allows himself to sleep.

For the first time in days, Hell doesn’t seem so close.  

**

_Tony Stark is a man, simply that.  And we cannot blame him for that.  Because man, afterall, is capable of evil._

_But man is also capable of good._

_And in recent years we, as a country, have come to realize that one man at least, is, while not necessarily a good person_ _, is still able to_ _do_ _good._

_In the end..._

_He is a hero._

 


End file.
